


i know it's warmer where you are (and it's safer by your side)

by Quintessentia



Category: Septiplier - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Lots of it, M/M, i wrote this after watching the panel last weekend so none of this is my fault, so much of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:36:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6687601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quintessentia/pseuds/Quintessentia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three days is not enough, but it'll have to be for now. (Written after watching the Markiplier and friends panel from PAX East 2016)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i know it's warmer where you are (and it's safer by your side)

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so this is actually way less graphic than i'd initially intended it to be, because I haven't written actual porn in over a year. Sue me. This ISN'T an update for the Soulmate/Hitman AU (obviously), but I hope to have one for you all in a handful of days.
> 
> This takes place immediately after last weekend's PAX East 2016 panel with Mark, Jack, and Wade. I got inspired and then I got emotional, and then this turned into a trainwreck. Sorry.
> 
> Title is once again from You and I by Pvris (the stripped version). I know I used it for my previous installment of the Hitman AU, but I listened to the stripped version of the song recently and it was so incredibly good I left it on repeat while writing this. I highly recommend listening while reading.

Jack’s loved Mark for as long as he can remember now, the years a one way blur of admiration and longing through the screen of a computer, and later through constant contact over Skype and the phone lines. Being _in_ love with Mark—now that’s a more recent development, but one that’s been in the making since Jack first heard Mark say his name over a tinny internet connection in Jack’s apartment.

He won’t admit to anything, though. He can’t. If Mark knew—if he _knew_ how Jack felt, how it physically aches every second they’re closer to being apart again, _god_.

Jack will have to shoulder this wreckage all on his own, because the thought of this thing that they have being as intense for Mark as it is for him is too much to even consider. His whole world might implode.

There are moments when Mark makes him wonder, though. Sometimes their gazes will meet and the music playing throughout the back of Jack’s head will swell with something so terribly poignant and real that he’s numbed by it. The symphony of his thoughts and emotions and every physical sensation Mark’s ever inspired in him join together, building into a wave of paralysis that crashes over his heart and lungs.

It’s been two and a half days they’ve had with one another and it feels like a snapshot of an entire lifetime. Mark’s made it clear that he has no intention of allowing them to be separate for longer than absolutely necessary, as if he and Jack had made an unspoken agreement before either of them set foot in Boston.

Jack had never made plans to get a separate hotel room, because Mark had dived right into talking about their trip like it was one incredibly prolonged date between the two of them, even going as far as to talk about ‘their room’ as though it was already set in stone.

Jack hadn’t complained at all, and he’s glad Mark had the balls to do what he couldn’t; otherwise he might not be where he is right now.

It’s only been an hour and a half since the panel, and they’ve already turned in for the night, citing exhaustion from the weekend’s activities and bidding goodbye to Wade and all the friendly convention staff.

They’ve been back for fifteen minutes and Jack’s floating on air: glasses on, jeans gone, and hair a mess from the way Mark had been kissing him in the public restroom on their way out of the convention center. Mark’s throwing clothes around their room like he’s trying to redecorate, and the fact that all Jack can think of at the moment is how endearing he looks is more than enough proof of how sick in love he is.

He knows he shouldn’t be—knows there’s an ocean of space and reasons between them in real life why this can’t work out, but Jack wants to be young at heart tonight. He doesn’t want to think about the way he has to leave in a couple days, or how he and Mark will be forced back into communicating sporadically over technology. The night is wide open and every signal he’s been getting for the past forty eight hours or so points to the reality that right now Mark is _his_.

He pushes away thoughts of dancing around time zones and work and cramming their relationship down into texts, and focuses on the way his heart is beating out of his chest and the air is buzzing with anticipation in time with the flickering bedside lamp.

“What’re you doing over there?” he asks, hugging his knees as the bedsheets pool around his ankles.

Mark looks at him, and Jack hates the distance between them all of a sudden. It feels as massive as the ocean that usually separates them, and he wants more than anything for one of them to give up the ghost and finally cross it for real.

“I’m getting undressed,” Mark replies, voice half laughter, half dark, syrupy intent. Goosebumps prickle on Jack’s skin. “Is there a problem?”

“Yeah,” Jack pouts, completely aware of the grave he’s digging for himself. Though with the way Mark’s gaze is trained directly on him, he may be digging a grave for two at this point. “You’re taking way too long.”

The way Mark’s chest stutters a little with the breath he draws in means that Jack’s earlier assumption was correct, and that he’s definitely not the only one who’s neck deep in this absolute train wreck that’s heading in their direction.

Mark drags his shirt over his head and drops it like a lead weight, his jeans and boxers having gone missing a few minutes ago, and Jack swallows hard. They haven’t gone much farther than hurried, desperate fumbling in back rooms and this very same bed the past couple nights, but tonight is different, Jack can tell.

They’ve been pushing and pulling all day, holding hands when no one’s looking, stealing kisses during snack breaks and flirting nonstop in front of the fans, but now that they’re alone…

There’s nothing to stop either of them from sinking deeper into this thing that’s growing steadily between them, and whatever happens tonight is only going to feed the beast. The pins and needles in Jack’s fingers and toes are going to gain a mind of their own and flow upstream, all the way to his heart until he’s suffocating and bleeding and his entire sense of self is collapsed from the inside out.

The thickness of the tension in the air is warping his better judgment and Jack can barely feel the prodding at his heart with the way Mark’s coming closer, all dark eyes and rough hands ready to map out hours of sensation onto Jack’s skin. Mark is like a numbing agent, like chloroform on his lips or morphine is his veins, hiding the pain and the repercussions until they wake in the morning and face the damage they’ve wrought.

There’s no time between Mark climbing onto the mattress and his lips making contact with Jack’s, picking up where they left off barely a half hour ago. Jack’s legs spread clumsily and he braces a palm on Mark’s shoulder, torn between letting himself be pressed down into the pillows and surging upwards to demand even more from Mark’s mouth on his.

“Do you want this?” Mark asks him, voice utterly destroyed after no time spent kissing at all, and Jack would roll his eyes if it didn’t mean breaking their gaze for even a second. “Jack, tell me you want this.”

His response is to bring Mark even closer, bracketing the other man’s body in with his knees and mouthing tenderly at his jaw.

“I’m tired of wanting it,” he draws out a breath, fingertips grazing Mark’s stubble harshly. “I wanna _have_ it. Wanna have you.”

That’s all the confirmation Mark needs, because he catches Jack’s mouth with his own again and this time Jack knows that neither of them would be able to stop this if they tried. Were the bed to collapse beneath them or the lamp to burst into flames, he and Mark would keep going throughout all the chaos.

Mark is skillful in the way his kisses manage to be sloppy and direct all at once, hot and wet and demanding that Jack keep up. His hands are bigger than Jack’s, already discovering new territory along the expanse of Jack’s arms and sides like they hadn’t spent all of last night intertwined so closely they’d lost track of their own separate heartbeats.

Jack’s own hands are back to smoothing out across the planes of Mark’s shoulder blades, not quite slick with sweat but warm beneath his palms as they kiss each other stupid.

Mark’s lips stray from his and Jack whines, first quietly, then with more feeling as Mark nudges his head to the side, mouth trailing back down his jawline and towards his neck. The sensation of warm breath and soft skin against the stubble on his cheeks and the heated stretch of his throat only fuels the roiling desperation that’s been building inside him all day. Jack wants Mark close, so close that he never loses the feeling of skin on skin and teeth prying their way into his flesh, nipping and soothing a wet trail towards the dip in his collarbone.

Jack chokes back a moan as Mark settles himself in more closely; attaching a hand to Jack’s hip to secure his legs in place while he worships the skin beneath him. His mouth leaves bruises in a rough pattern along Jack’s front, a language unspoken and unique to them and them only, words scripted in purple stains across Jack’s bones and flesh.

One hand rises to card through Mark’s hair, newly cut but still familiar under Jack’s fingertips, and Mark groans in response to Jack’s tugging.

“Baby,” he rumbles hoarsely, and Jack’s hips buck up of their own accord at that—unexpected endearments and the way Mark’s voice chews them up and rearranges them until they’re sparks going straight to his dick, entire body threatening to burst into flame.

“Baby,” Mark says again, as Jack’s involuntary movements cause him to tug harder on Mark’s hair and slot their lower bodies closer together. “We’ve barely gotten started and you’re coming apart at the seams.”

And, _fuck_. Jack knows how transparent he is. He’s more than aware that he’s grabbing too hard and pulling Mark too close. He’s made it no secret how much he wants this, and looking into Mark’s eyes is like staring into a spotlight honed directly on him. His lover is getting the picture now, barely minutes into the mess they’re making of themselves, and Jack’s already giving himself away like he’d sworn he wouldn’t.

“M’sorry,” he apologizes thickly, not so much out of guilt but out of the desire to let Mark know that he cares. He cares a lot. Oh _god_ , does he care and he wants it to matter. He wants it to mean something that Mark can look at him like the rest of the world is in black and white and that Jack wants him badly enough to look back in the same way.

“Don’t apologize,” Mark says, head dipping down to continue his path of absolute wreckage along Jack’s body and psyche. They’re hardly anywhere past ankle deep yet, and Jack can feel himself spiraling out of control. He’s not going to last this way, not with this view and with Mark on top of him, fitting between his legs and fingers the way he does.

Mark’s trail of kisses doesn’t dip past Jack’s shoulders, but there are blunt fingernails tracing the hemline of his boxer-briefs and Jack’s embarrassed beyond all telling because he’s so hard already, and Mark’s barely touched him.

His whining starts back up again as Mark’s hands dip lower, fingers curling around the elastic as they pull downwards and his tongue flicks over a nipple, hot and cold air in succession like the blink of an eye. Jack’s always been incredibly vocal in bed, nothing new there, but never this soon and to this extent.

In the time it takes for him to register the fleeting pain of Mark biting down on the darkened flesh of his left nipple, he’s been stripped down completely of the last of his clothes and both of Mark’s hands are back on his hips. He feels a little like a ragdoll, overheated and boneless in Mark’s grip as he adjusts them both so their hips can slot together and– _shit_.

He’s nearly forgotten Mark is already naked and the noise Jack makes when their cocks brush together must sound like he’s being gutted, high-pitched and needy. The sound is so foreign to him that Jack turns his head in embarrassment, eyes squeezing shut with the way their bodies are still in such close contact that he can feel nearly every inch of Mark against him.

Mark laughs quietly, and when Jack glances back at him through blurry eyes, he’s smiling.

“I wanna hear you,” he murmurs, so enviously deep and gravel worn that Jack feels it down to his toes. “I wanna hear all those beautiful fucking sounds I know you’re hiding from me. Don’t make me drag them out of you by force.”

Jack swallows around the dryness of his throat and manages to respond without his voice cracking.

“You’re gonna have to earn it first,” he croaks back, cheeks still flaming red from nerves and the way his chest feels split open and emptied of all its contents. Everything is shrouded in the dim shadows from the lamp and the inevitability of what the rest of the night will bring. Jack’s brain is running on autopilot, and he’s surprised he’s even able to form words.

“Is that so?” Mark looks positively devious, one eyebrow cocking at Jack where he looms over him. “How many points do I earn for fucking you open on my fingers until you scream? Will that get me what I want?”

Jack has to grab at Mark’s bicep above him, still instinctively trying to hold back his noises of enthusiastic agreement, and he sucks in a harsh breath. He can feel the way his dick twitches against his abdomen, already fucking leaking all over his skin and he wants it, he wants it so bad. Mark’s fingers and his tongue and his voice and the way Jack knows for a fact that Mark can play him like a fiddle, how he won’t have to work at all to make Jack sing the exact notes he needs in order to to coax the perfect song out of him.

Jack is putty in his hands and they both know it.

“Please…” he whispers, giving up any and all pretense of control. They can play games later, once Jack has had his fill and Mark has had his way with Jack. “Please Mark, do whatever ye want, just please, _please_ …”

Mark growls, pressing Jack further back into the mattress and kissing him again, both hands sliding up his thighs until he’s folding Jack’s legs in half against his chest.

“Better not move,” he hums in between their tongues tangling and Jack’s pleading whimpers. “Not until I say so.”

Jack thinks he nods, but he can’t be sure, not with the way Mark’s trying to distract him while he reaches in the nightstand drawer for the lube Jack doesn’t remember either of them stashing there earlier.

There’s a click of a plastic cap coming off and Mark’s backing away just a little, but Jack can’t help unconsciously following Mark’s lips with his own, not wanting the kiss to end as his mind slowly spirals downward into a thick mire of hazy pleasure.

Mark smiles again, all fucking gorgeous dark lines and muscular frame against the half light of the room and Jack is so weak in the heart for him that it fucking hurts and he can’t imagine this night ever ending. There’s no world outside of this one, no people to meet tomorrow and no planes to catch that will fly him back to the reality he’s been trying to avoid for days now.

“Patience, baby.” Mark soothes, his momentary aggression from earlier saturated with fondness and the pins and needles must have already reached Jack’s heart, because the idea that that’s all that Mark feels for him is suddenly unbearable to imagine.

Jack regains the use of his hands, re-discovering them somewhere limp by his sides, and drags them heavily across his lower thighs to hold himself open for Mark, hoping he’s making himself clear.

“Please,” he begs, because other words seem to be difficult for his brain to manage right now. “Please god, Mark, just fuck me. Been thinking about it all day—about your fingers and your cock, even on stage in front of everybody I was thinking about how it was gonna feel. Imagining you fucking me open and just…just making me take it. Fuck, Mark. Please.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Mark leans closer, one hand closing over Jack’s where it’s got a vice grip on the quivering skin of his thigh, and the other coming to brush at his entrance, cold and wet. “Is that what you think about when we’re out there with them? About me holding you down and making you scream, fucking you open ‘til you’re wet and begging for it like the absolute needy little bitch that you are?”

“Yeah,” Jack’s voice breaks for real this time as Mark slides a finger in two knuckles deep, immediately crooking it and searching. “Yeah, that’s what I want. Please, Mark.”

Mark’s back to mouthing at his jawline wetly as he rubs gently at Jack’s insides, getting them both used to the feeling before he pushes Jack’s body farther.

“Should’ve known how naturally begging came to someone as mouthy as you,” he rumbles, hunched over Jack so perfectly that it feels like both their bodies are in total alignment, and Jack grapples for another kiss.

Mark indulges him for a second, then pulls away as he drops back to murmuring filthy things in Jack’s ear, distracting him again as he pushes a second finger in, testing Jack’s limits.

“Gonna make you scream for it, Jack,” his voice is heavy enough to make Jack’s bones ache, and Jack pants as both fingers scissor inside of him, the wet stretch making every nerve ending burn. “You’ll scream so loud you’ll lose your voice and everyone out there will think you let me fuck your throat raw. Would you like that?”

“Yes—yeah,” Jack pants in response, unable to decipher whether or not the way he can feel his cock drooling more precum onto his lower abdomen is in response to the idea of being fucked until he can’t speak or of every single one of their friends and viewers knowing what they’ve done.

“Yes what?” Mark is smug and gentle all at once, careful with his movements like he’s got all the time in the world to make Jack fall apart, and he intends to use every minute of it. He withdraws his fingers just long enough to make Jack sob quietly, and then they’re back, moving in and out of him at a slow, slick pace. Jack writhes.

“Yes I want ye to make me scream,” he gasps, fingernails digging into his own skin so deeply he fears he’ll bleed, wanting desperately to grab back onto Mark instead. “I want your fingers and your cock and I wanna suck you off ‘til you’re coming down my throat and I want them all to know about us.”

Mark groans like Jack’s just said something incredibly mind-numbingly hot, and his fingers speed up inside of Jack. There’s already a squelching sound coming from between his legs, where the thickness of Mark’s fingers is stretching at his rim and Jack barely has to consider begging for a third finger before Mark’s indulging him.

Jack can’t take it anymore, and his hand moves from the leg not being held up by Mark’s free hand to grip his cock tightly, trying to resist the urge to fuck up into his own fist and mess up the rhythm of Mark’s fingers fucking him so perfectly.

He barely gets a chance to stroke himself once or twice before his hand is being slapped away, and Mark’s hissing at him.

“I told you not to move,” the other man says, eyes flashing and fingers twisting to graze Jack’s prostate at the exact time the words tumble out of his mouth. “Do it again and m’gonna make you regret it.”

Jack howls when Mark deliberately brushes against his prostate again and he pants, feeling the sweat beading at his forehead as his body tenses up at the foreign sensation.

He glances down between the two of them to see Mark’s cock, flushed dark red and obscured by the growing darkness of their hotel room, and he’s not even ashamed when his mouth waters.

Jack’s had sex plenty of times, but he can’t remember a time when he was this desperate for anything, much less the idea of blowing another guy.

“Mark,” he mumbles, voice cracked and shaking as he bucks into the three fingers stabbing at his prostate mercilessly now. “ _Mark_ , wanna…”

“Hmm?” Mark asks absentmindedly, fixated on where his fingers are disappearing into Jack over and over again. His eyes are glassy and bright. “What’s that, sweetheart?”

Jack makes grabby motions somewhere in the direction of Mark’s lower body.

“Wanna suck,” he says, then catches his breath and swallows the saliva that’s instinctively building up in his mouth. “I wanna suck you off.”

Even in the muggy lighting Jack can see the way Mark’s dick twitches and precum pools at the top, and Jack _wants_.

“Fuck,” Mark’s back to sounding wrecked, and Jack marvels for a second that he of all people can make Mark’s voice sound like that. “Not yet, okay? I gotta—m’gonna fuck you first, Jack. You can have as much as you want of me, later.”

He bends back down to kiss Jack again, dirty and without finesse, his fingers sliding in and out of Jack’s ass one more time before pulling free completely, leaving Jack feeling hopelessly empty. Mark swallows his complaints with his lips and tongue, and steals his breath from him in the same manner.

Mark fumbles for the lube again, finding it somewhere past his left knee and opens it one handed, focusing on milking as many sounds from Jack’s mouth as possible while he slicks himself up.

Jack is so dizzy from the kisses he almost doesn’t notice the blunt tip of Mark’s dick pressing forward at his entrance, and he bites Mark’s lip when he feels it, hands grasping at Mark’s shoulders until he’s got a firm enough grip.

It’s hard to reconcile himself from earlier today with how he feels now, overwhelmed and disoriented, about to be fucked into the mattress by the man he’s loved and admired from afar for years. He’d never thought Mark would pay him any mind, just another aspiring internet personality grasping fruitlessly at his heels, but here they are.

“What’re you thinking about?” Mark whispers, one hand wrapped around his own dick as he teases the tip against Jack’s rim, making Jack’s legs and hips stutter aimlessly.

“You, you awful fuck,” Jack croaks, left senseless and crude by how much he wants Mark near him, on him, inside of him. “I’m thinking about you and how I’ve wanted this for years and here you are teasing me like a fucking asshole—.”

Mark shuts him up then, pushing in just enough to make Jack choke on his own words and claw at Mark’s back, a whine tearing its way out of his throat at the way Mark fills him.

“What was that?” Mark’s head is dipped down, panting in Jack’s ear as he works his way into him with short, sharp little thrusts, each one punching a noise out of Jack like he’s being invaded to his very core. “Jack, how long have you wanted this?”

Jack can barely breathe around the way it feels to have Mark inside of him, but he knows without thinking that he never wants the feeling to leave, wishing he could bottle up the way it feels to be so intimately connected to the person he desires most.

“So long…” he groans out, struggling to put words to the emotions wracking his brain and bones. “Just wanted you to feel the same way…as I did.”

Mark’s still for a moment, whether to let Jack adjust or to adjust to Jack’s words he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter. Everything is hanging in the balance between them, lingering over their necks like the Damocles’ sword of potentially unrequited love, and Jack only ever thrives under pressure.

“Does any of this answer your questions?” Mark hums, and Jack can see the minute tremors wracking his frame as he struggles with himself. For all that Mark blusters his way through life with grandeur and false arrogance, Jack knows he’s just a man.

Jack’s hands roam as they please, trailing across Mark’s shoulders and arms, sliding over the barely there indentation of his ribs as his legs lock around Mark’s hips. The burn and stretch of Mark’s cock inside of him is so good and once again he’s struck by the reality of how close they are now, and how far apart they’ll be again in a few days.

It doesn’t feel fair as Mark begins to move his hips, slowly because this is the first time they’ve done this together, and if Jack’s going to have to leave this behind in a short time then he’s going to make sure they draw it out for as long as possible.

They move together, pushing and pulling and Jack’s so caught up in right now, in the way this feels that the idea of ever being without it is ludicrous to him. Mark fills him just right, thick and hot and hard, and his shoulders glow above Jack’s body, backed by moonlight and slicked with sweat.

Mark is a vocal lover, Jack learns in between hungry kisses and blunt teeth on his bottom lip, not only in noises but in words, a constant stream of filth and affection flowing from his mouth as he fucks Jack into oblivion.

“How would you feel if all of them could see us now?” he growls, sometime after Jack’s been reduced to nothing but high, constant whimpers and choked off versions of ‘ _yes’_ and ‘ _please, more’_.

“How would you feel if every single one of those people who waits to see you in line for so long could see you like this, whining and writhing under me, begging for my cock?” Mark’s on his knees, holding onto both of Jack’s legs as he fucks into him, and Jack’s helpless to do anything in return. All he can do is lie there and take it, hands gripping the bedsheets in ecstasy while Mark has his way with him.

“Do you think they’d look at you the same way, knowing that all it takes to make their idol lose his voice is a cock in his ass and a hand on his dick?” Mark’s voice is utterly trashed, so far from its usual smooth baritone now that he’s taken them both so far, and the idea that it was Jack who did that to _Mark_ of all people…Jack can’t help what it does to him.

“Only yours,” he gasps, voice cutting off with a sob as he feels the heat building in his abdomen. He’s going to come even faster than he’d expected, after hardly even touching his own dick, with the way Mark’s driving into him. The sensations are curling beneath his skin, spreading throughout his veins and every nerve ending is sparking against the sheets and the slap of Mark’s balls against his ass.

“Goddammit, Jack,” Mark groans and crawls back up Jack’s body, one hand braced under his left hip as he presses their foreheads together, his pace stuttering and then speeding back up again as he tries to get his bearings. “You’re gonna come without me touching your cock, and when you do I wanna hear you. Every noise, every whimper. I want it all.”

Jack’s cock is smearing a mess of precum across his skin and he wants so, so badly to touch it, but he knows that if he does Mark might not let him come altogether and he’s chasing that release with everything in him, so desperate.

“A-are ye gonna come?” Jack asks, unable to recognize his own destroyed voice, because he has to know that Mark is getting there too because of him.

“Yeah baby,” Mark’s voice has lowered to a whisper. “Don’t you worry about me, just take your time. I wanna see you fall apart, just for me. I want you to give that to me, okay? Can you do that?”

Jack kisses him, because Mark is so close and he needs him as close as possible, words or no words flying between them. He lets Mark take over, too far gone in his own mind to control the dance of their lips and tongues combined with the sound of their bodies meeting and the overwhelming heat that’s stifling the air in his lungs.

Jack comes with Mark’s teeth on his neck and a scream he’s sure the entire hallway can hear, and he doesn’t give a damn. His eyes are half closed and he can barely see through the blurriness but Mark is gasping, fucking into him harder and gripping bruises into his hips and ass, painfully delicious. He looks so enamored by the sight of Jack coming to pieces beneath him that Jack shakes with the force of his body draining itself and his mind tethering itself to Mark’s expression.

“That’s it, baby,” Mark sounds far away and he’s still going, cock still sliding in and out of Jack at a brutal, punishing pace, but it doesn’t feel like a punishment, not at all. “Just like that, Jesus fuck you’re so good for me. So good, Jack, goddamn you’re so beautiful.”

Jack’s body is worn and spent, tremoring with aftershocks and oxygen is evading him, lingering just out of reach as he watches Mark’s eyes close in pleasure, finally tipping over the edge to join Jack in the fucking clouds. Jack holds him close to the best of his ability, unable to do anything but stroke his hair and gasp for breath into his neck.

They lie there, still joined at the hips as Jack soothes Mark back to full awareness, finding himself unable to let go. Mark’s hair is a mess, falling into his eyes and sticking to his sweaty forehead, but Jack doesn’t care. He kisses it all away, listening to Mark hum in gratitude and dim pleasure as Jack rocks him slowly.

“Are you okay?” Mark asks him finally, once he’s able to lift his head and look Jack in the eyes.

Jack’s throat feels tight.

“I would be if I didn’t have to leave so soon,” he admits, cupping Mark’s face in both hands and pressing their noses together, lips glancing off of one another but not quite kissing. “We shouldn’t be apart. It’s not fair.”

Mark tugs at his bottom lip with his teeth, gentle and without demand for anything but contact.

“Just let me kiss you,” he begs, still breathing like his lungs can no longer keep up with either of them. Jack feels like his body is breathing for the both of them. “Just let me pretend for a moment that I can have you.”

“You can,” Jack murmurs between wet, sloppy kisses, because those are the best kind. “You can have all of me if you want—I don’t care how far apart we are.”

“I’ll visit you,” Mark promises him, drunk on the air between them and the mingled taste of their lips. “Any chance I get I’ll come visit you. We don’t have to leave your house, not even your damn bed if you don’t want to.”

Jack wants so badly for that to be true. He wants it to be that easy—to pretend that traveling doesn’t cost time and money and energy they may or may not have. Long distance relationships are hard, and every inch of space between them is another ocean Jack can’t cross.

“Okay,” he replies, because promises are sweet and Mark’s are sweeter than most. “Okay, you can visit. You can stay as long as you want. Forever, even.”

If the distance between them feels like an eternity, then the time Jack wants to spend with Mark is an even longer one, encompassing years and years and miles of doubt and ground. The rest of the night is spent in half consciousness, Jack’s head crowding up with images of what could be and the way it feels to breathe in time with Mark next to him.

He doesn’t know how many hours he actually sleeps, but dawn breaks and Jack doesn’t care to watch it at all. The sun will rise for them every morning, and Mark alone holds more promise than the first light of any day.

**Author's Note:**

> I love you all and I promise I'll eventually learn how to write porn properly again. As always, leave a comment and tell me what you thought! <3


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